Butterflies in the Fire
by Doctor Faustus
Summary: It ate away at him, at the heart of the child genius who wrote his own epilogue for the way it all played out.


It couldn't have been more than a few seconds, plunging to his death.

All he thought about was his final question, and all he felt, was a brief sense of regret and finality. The triumph and relief that he imagined that he would feel, when he took the final step, wasn't even present at all.

And his descent was endless.

* * *

"_Now, Gods of the Infinite Castle, answer me…"_

How often had he sat on the rooftop, and looked out at the outside world, admiring and envious of their freedom? There, he had often imagined, would be a world where anything was possible. Good and bad would not have to clash in a war of extremities wherever one turned, and society was neither dictated by the reckless might of the strong, nor the weak left to perish at the will of others.

He had thought about it many times before. Often, such thoughts came to him when the world was sleeping, and with only the familiar whirring of his computer to keep him company in the darkest hours of the soul.

He couldn't deny that he missed the Volts badly. He missed the way Ginji-san would smile at him, in the distant but concerned fashion that warmed him from the inside. He missed the way Kazuki-san had always been kind and gentle to him. He missed Shido, he missed Emishi, Juubei, Sakura, all the people who formed the Volts that became his family.

And after the Volts, family soon became an obsolete concept.

Sometimes he caught snatches of conversation of others, who discussed him covertly, terrified that a wrong word or action could catch his attention and condemn them to death in the pits of his mad blue eyes. He failed to understand why others still saw him to be a lonely but intelligent child, who strove to control everything around him in the binding web of his calculations.

Why did everyone still see him as a child? He had tried so hard to grow up, and he willingly suppressed every emotion and thought that would have signified otherwise. It had been years since he cried, and even longer since he had laughed, and still people saw him as a child who ruled his reign of terror over them all.

Didn't he try his best? It had often occurred to him, in the initial days after the departure of his friends one by one, that perhaps they were unwilling to take him with them, as he was far too immature in their esteem. But he had not become childish or immature after joining the Volts, just that it grew far too tempting to cave in, to believe fully in his Ginji-san who promised to protect him and everyone else his loved.

When Ginji-san had left, Makubex had been the only member of the Volts who did not express any emotion outwardly at all. He was a little surprised, and more than a little hurt, but he believed that as long as it was possible, Ginji-san would return to the Volts and lead them once again.

Ginji-san would never abandon them.

And then Kazuki had left. And one by one, everyone else left too, until only a few remained and even so, Makubex was never sure whether they really believed in him or if they had simply nowhere else to turn. It didn't matter, but he was the strongest amongst them all in terms of intellectual capability, and as long as he breathed, he would try to protect them as best as he could.

Maybe it had been a mistake to trust in Ginji-san so entirely, but even if it was a mistake, he was willing to carry on with it till the end.

Or at least that had been what he believed, until he saw a picture of the Volts that he had saved, and the sudden realisation that Genji-san hadn't returned in a year, hit him in the gut. It was a small thing, barely enough to rouse attention, and Makubex had no idea why it had made him cry as hard as it did.

* * *

"_My last question…"_

He didn't really understand why he walked on as though there was no turning back, just that it hurt badly inside and he worked and worked to keep it all at bay. The pressures of his responsibilities weighed heavily upon his shoulders, and he began to have sleepless nights as he pushed himself on, trying nightly to break into the security bank that held the information he sought.

It slowly began to feel as though it wore him out even to breathe and it became a tedious effort to walk the well-worn steps he took each day in his bid to assert control over the rampant chaos that raged after Genji-san's departure. And the sadness remained closed inside his heart, where it gnawed away at him, pulling him deeper and deeper into himself.

He was so lonely, but too proud to confide in Juubei or even Sakura. He was grateful to them for the small kindnesses that they showed to him, for unexpected words or actions that made him feel less alone and scared. Though they warmed him from the inside, they left him feeling nonetheless empty and even more broken than before when he brought himself to scorn even their warmth.

It had been a mistake to persist in his quest for knowledge. It had all been one big mistake, to not just walk away and pack his bags as Ginji-san had done. Perhaps it was why he left. Makubex finally understood why Ginji-san had to leave, yet a small part of his traitorous heart told him Ginji-san left to prove that he could.

Maybe Ginji-san simply wanted to know that he was capableof leaving, that he was not dictated by the invisible rules of the Infinite Castle. That he was not another random fact, another binary number, another digital face amongst the monstrous thousands of files that lay hidden behind passwords, codes and endless firewalls.

In his tireless search for the information, he had stumbled upon the archives of Babylon City, and learnt that he had merely been a puppet on a string all along. The more he read, the more he didn't understand how he had been so blind all along. It had been predicted, written down, and neatly typed into the knowledge bank as another random statistic.

His life. His quest. His search for freedom.

* * *

"_I, Makubex..."_

He didn't want to be a fragment of someone else's dream. It simply wasn't fair, to wake up every day and come to terms with the sickening realisation that the day, like all others before, had already been charted and computed. But he refused to share with anyone else the burden of living with the sensation of many invisible hands pulling him back from whichever direction he ran, into the standard grids of conformity.

Every night, he dreamt of being left alone.

No matter how he ran and ran in the day time, each night pulled him steadily backwards in time again. Gradually, he found himself weighing up his preference, between a future that he could not interfere with, and a safe past that he was at least, _happy _in.

As time went past, he began to create his own virtual realities, spinning them from the same fabric that Babylon City had entrapped everyone in. His version was far inferior in quality, and yet the difference between it and real life, became increasingly negotiable. His prowess led to ever-increasing doubts about what he was doing, and where he was eventually heading. He needed information so badly, to find a way out from the wretched lives that had been planned for them. Yet the more he found out, the more he realised with bitter resignation that even his search was anticipated and accounted for.

After all, there wasn't so much difference between what was virtual and what was real...

…was there?

Makubex became increasingly lonely and scared, as time went past. He couldn't remember where he had come from. He couldn't remember anything of the outside world. He didn't have any memories that weren't accounted for, by the people of Infinite Castle. All he had was a surname, and the word of an old man that he had been found _abandoned _at Infinite Castle.

It ate away at him, at the heart of the child geniuswho wrote his own epilogue for the way it all played out.

If he wasn't real, what use was he? If he wasn't real, what was the point of any of his thoughts? Perhaps this had been the truth behind Ginji-san's abrupt departure, perhaps this was why everyone he loved deserted him in the end.

He never felt so unsure, and so desperately alone before in his entire life. He spent entire days and nights, lying on his back on the rooftop, sorting out his thoughts until a clear outcome was visible in his mind. There was no other choice but to take a course of action so drastic that its consequences could not be affected by the Infinite Castle; a course of action that was as unexpected as it was unstoppable.

The brilliant lunacy of his idea dawned upon him, when he looked out at the demolition of the buildings in the outer world and remembered Hiroshima. There was never an idea as selfish and insane as his, and if it succeeded, it would be the greatest plan that had ever been pulled off.

The atomic bomb would be enough to threaten the Gods of the Infinite Castle. Either they returned him to the happy times of the past, or they erased everyone and everything into oblivion. Even if they refused to do anything, one click of the switch and it was more than enough to send everyone into the afterworld.

He realised that perhaps not quite everyone was as ready to plunge into death's arms, the moment they realised that they weren't as free as they had presumed. He also knew that it was a selfish course of action that he had to convince and manipulate everyone else into following dutifully. But between a life of his eternal torment, and the possibility where everyone was safe and happy again in the good times of the Volts, death had not seemed too large a price to pay.

Now that he had failed to secure any ending at all, Makubex was stripped of all pretences and ambition, and left alone again with only his painful loneliness. Ban's words had rankled when he called him a child. The accusation that he had been manipulating people's lives just as the Gods did, still rang in his ears, and it hurt even worse when he thought about it and realised that Ban was right.

He wondered why such a thought had never occurred to him before. And it broke his heart even further when he considered what the consequences could have been, if he had actually pressed the button.

But nothing had taken place, nothing seemed to have changed. Nothing had altered, except perhaps the knowledge that he had failed. Drastically, completely, he was a failure in his work and he had been a failure in the way he led his life.

For the first time in his life, Makubex felt like a child. The overwhelming bitterness of his failure and regret, nearly choked him as he had stood at the roof's edge and contemplated his approaching end. He had tried his best and it just wasn't enough.

All he had wanted was to be with everyone again. Why was that so wrong?

Now that he had failed, perhaps it was time for him to take the next logical step that answered his final query. Even if he could accomplish nothing else, perhaps the Gods of the Infinite Castle would answer his last question. Death would prove that he was real, once and for all. Oblivion would end his torment, and he would be secure in his unawareness that he was just a number that erased itself.

He felt himself die inside even as he fell.

"_Am I really here…?"_

* * *

THE END

A/N: I hope this went over okay, I'm not too good at piecing together complex personalities so hopefully this didn't sound OOC for Makubex. He was cool before he returned to his normal, uh...merry self.


End file.
